Before me is the tabula rasa and iranis mens – Empty page and empty mind – with a pen, fecund and eager. What shapes will emerge from its potent tip? What birth will be given to words and stories my empty page awaits with simple glee – a young bride hoping for a child one day and plenty of time to wait?

Well, already there are marks on the page and they signal nothing but questions needing no answer, problems needing no solution.

Onward, my pen continues, enjoying the motion with no need of a result; communion with the virgin page its sole reason, right now. Perhaps the empty space will be impregnated with meaning; perhaps not. Page and pen are sated by their shared intimacy.

Like friends who meet and talk of weather, politics and sport – matters they have no control over or interest in – the point of the conversation is that it has no point beyond the connection with another being … another being with a shared disinterest in topics of no merit. In these inconsequential conversations are the unspoken words we cannot say:

I am lonely and need someone to talk with …

I have worries and concerns I cannot put words to …

I really like you, my friend, but I cannot say that …

I feel comforted by familiar and unchallenging topics …

My name feels safe in your mouth and I yearn for you to say it …

Thus, matters of no meaning give us diversion from what our own minds will not release us from. Our internal narcissist is given a welcome break when we’re forced to talk about that which talk will not effect – weather, politics and sport will do what they’re gonna’ do, despite our complaining and complementing.

So, on this page, yearning for connection – not meaning or result – my pen strokes and caresses and, at the end of our intimacy, nothing is gained but the pleasant release from my nagging world inside.

Having written nought, thank you for this literary intercourse.

This was a free-writing exercise by the Carindale Writers’ Group – just start writing whatever comes to mind, whatever mindless drivel wanders down your pen onto the page, with no thought of what to write about or why.

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